The increased number of animals now held in various parts of the world does not give an adequate idea of the enlarged production of animal food products, as compared with one hundred years ago. During the last century there has been constant improvement in the various breeds of animals, with a view to perfect their form and shorten the time required for their growth. The breeder has learned how to stimulate development, and has fixed the quality of early maturity, through hereditary influence, until it is now transmitted with the same regularity as are other characteristics.
Cattle are no longer fed until they are three or four years old before being sent to the butcher, and it has been found that they can be made to yield an equal quantity of beef of better quality at eighteen months to two years. It is the flesh of such young animals which has been much discussed under the title of “baby beef.” Not only is this beef commended on account of its tenderness, its high nutritive value, and the more even distribution of fat through the muscular tissue, but because this shortening of the feeding period enables the farmer to produce a greatly increased quantity of human food from the same number of acres. That is, by reducing the age at which bullocks are marketed from three and one half years, as was formerly the rule, to twenty months, it is possible for the same farm to produce one third more animals in a given series of years.
It may be admitted that not all of the stock of beef-producing animals, nor even the greater part of it, has acquired this extreme degree of early maturity, but most of it has developed somewhat in this direction. The large-boned, gaunt, and long-horned cattle of Texas have nearly disappeared, and even in Mexico they are being rapidly replaced by others of better quality. The most important fact is that breeds exist which can be depended upon for the speedy transformation of the entire stock of cattle when the necessity arises.
A similar hastening of maturing has been accomplished with the mutton breeds of sheep, with numerous varieties of swine, and to a considerable extent with poultry.
A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. (HERRING.)
The development of the dairy breeds of cattle has also been remarkable. It can be best appreciated by contrasting the half wild cows of our Western plains, which yield but two or three quarts of milk a day at their best, and none for half of the year, with the highly specialized types which produce twenty to thirty quarts daily when in full flow, and with which the milk secretion continues from year to year without interruption.
The yield of butter has been increased equally with that of milk, and among the dairy breeds there are some which are specially valued because of their aptitude for butter production. While the unimproved cow yields but one fourth to one half pound of butter a day, good specimens of the best breeds produce from one and one half to three pounds, and in numerous instances still greater quantities.
In the production of wool there has also been a wonderful advance. The fibre has been increased in length, the fleece has been distributed more uniformly over the surface of the body, and the quality of the fibre has been modified to conform to the requirements for manufacturing the infinite varieties of fabrics demanded by modern civilization. The fleece of to-day is probably three times as heavy as that of a century ago.
The improvement in the Merino type has been truly wonderful. Not only have the beautiful long and silky wools of the Rambouillet and Saxony breeds been developed by persistent selection, but the body of the Merino, formerly small and almost useless for its flesh, has been brought to a standard closely approaching that of the best mutton breeds.